US Offshore Wind Offensive & Industry Impact

Allen and Joel discuss the aggressive actions by the Trump
administration against offshore wind projects. They also consider
the broader implications for the wind industry, exploring onshore
impacts, geopolitical maneuvers, and strategies for companies to
adapt and prepare for future challenges. Register for the next
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today. Now here's your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, Phil Totaro,
and Rosemary Barnes.  Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime
Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and I'm here with
Joel Saxum, who's up in Wisconsin. Joel, you've had some really
cold weather up there the last couple of days. It's still
September. Doesn't really make sense, Alan. I dunno. It's,
it's  Joel Saxum: September, well, beginning of September
and this morning when I let the dog out at 5:20 AM whatever time
she decided to wake me up, it was 36 degrees here. That's way too
cold. Um, I knew, I, I, I went up here to escape a little bit of
heat from in Texas, but I did not look to Frost advisories and like
sweatshirts and vests and boots. Um, but that's what's happening.
Yeah. Even, uh. Even a [00:01:00] few red leaves floating
around on the lawn up here. So, uh, yeah, winter or fall is coming.
That means, you know what fall coming means is blade season for
repairs in the northern hemispheres slowing down or shutting down
shortly. So we're gonna get to hear what happened. Maybe a
postmortem, hopefully on the, the blade repair season in North
America.  Allen Hall: Yeah, it's been busy from what I
could tell. And plus there's a lot of construction going on. New
insights. There's, uh, all kinds of turbines being planted right
now. We're gonna be working through the end of the year easily, if
the weather will support it. Very active time at the moment. And
speaking of active time, this is our second take of this podcast,
uh, just because so much has happened since we recorded last
evening. Uh, Joel and I thought we ought to take another try or
attempt at this. Try to give you the, the most updated information.
Not to say it's not gonna change over the next couple of hours
after we finish this podcast, but, uh, the Trump
administration [00:02:00] has launched its most
aggressive attack on America's offshore wind industry. Uh, the
federal government is now working to withdraw permits for New
England Wind one and two off the coast of Massachusetts. These
projects are valued at roughly $14.6 billion by Bloomberg, NEF, and
we power more than 900,000 homes. Uh, but the, the issue really is
why are they being shut down? Nobody really knows. Uh, and there's
a lot of conjecture about it. And Joel, you and I were just talking
before we recorded here. It may have something to do with
Denmark.  Joel Saxum: Yeah, I think you wanna believe
that. Smoother minds will prevail that, uh, logic and pragmatism is
a part of government. But what it really seems is there's, there's
favoritism and there's egos and there's feelings driving some of
these, these decisions. Right? Today we just heard
or [00:03:00] just read that the, the Danish government
is in California signing a policy agreement for collaboration with
Gavin Newsom and the, the administration out there. We've, and, and
this is like on, this is on top of, uh, Trump's rhetoric around, or
the Trump administration's rhetoric around we would like Greenland.
And this day, Danish fight and all these different things happen in
between the two organizations or the two countries there. So it's
just kind of like posturing and, and we're back and forth and Sted
is the big Danish company, right? So now Sted is feeling a little
bit of. Pain from the Trump administration. So the people who are
close to Orid, IE, the Danish government come back and poke the
bear on the side a little bit more. Um, so it just seems like
there's a lot of, a lot of egos and things going on, and, and
that's why it's hard to make sense out of, right? So like, why is
this happening? There's no real reasons that we're being told as
the general public, right? Like there's
this [00:04:00] veiled kind of, oh, there might be a
national security thing here. Why we would cancel these projects.
But at the end of the day, like this is kind, it's unprecedented. I
mean, there's billions and billions of dollars sunk into these
projects. And what's the recourse, like if they get canceled? That
or Ted and or their partners are just. Out. Like, how can you
cancel a project in an offshore, uh, capacity that's 80% complete?
Doesn't make sense,  Allen Hall: right? So Revolution
wind was shut down a, a week or two ago at this point, and uh, that
happened immediately after Denmark, the prime Minister of Denmark
and the delegation from Denmark met with Gavin Newsom, the governor
of California, and then. Boom. Revolution wind is shut down. And
now New England Wind one and two, which is an avan grid project,
are in the same boat. So basically, uh, it triggered a series of
events, or at least it appears that way at the moment. It appears
to have triggered a number of events. And this also includes,
uh, [00:05:00] withdrawing about $679 million in federal
funding from. 12 infrastructure projects that are supporting
offshore wind development. The single largest loss is Humboldt Bay,
offshore wind in Northern California. Again, another Gavin Newsom
thing, which is gonna lose $427 million in federal support, and in
Norfolk, Virginia, the Fairwinds landing facility. Uh, supporting
Dominion's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project lost, uh, $39
million. Uh, so now the administration has threatened or blocked
about eight gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, which is a
tremendous number of homes that we would've powered. This is
starting to get to a little bit, uh. Unsettling. So the, the news
out of the New York Times last night as we're recording this, said
I think six administration departments have been asked to go find
ways [00:06:00] to threaten or stop offshore wind That's
been headed up by President Trump's chief of staff. So it's all the
way to the top, Joel. It just feels like this is personal for some
reason, and I don't know how it got to this level. But it is
becoming a little more irrational, uh, than it was maybe even six
weeks ago. And I know Phil was really upset about it six weeks ago.
And I genuinely agree. Like some of the comments coming outta the
administration are on. I, I would, I would say they were bonkers,
maybe is the right term, just being polite, but unfounded maybe is
a really good term. Uh, and, and now it's like really
escalated.  Joel Saxum: I think that the general public,
and so there's a way, a couple ways to look at it. In my mind, I'm
looking, is the hydrocarbon lobby this strong? Right? I know
they're strong, right? I'm in X oil and gas guy. I lived in
Houston, energy, capital world, all these things and was a part of
that, [00:07:00] uh, infrastructure for a long time. So I
know the things that they can get done if they want to get done.
Are they strong enough to turn the tides of an entire, basically
like. Western Hemisphere's energy production. 'cause that's what
it's looking like, right? Like the changes that they're so extreme
here have waterfall and cascading effects to all of the other
economies around us. You're seeing investment possibly pouring into
Canada offshore wind there. So that's changing their economy.
Changing our economy. Um, you'll, you'll see these things that.
They're not just going to affect here in the us they're that these
moves will affect globally. And you've, you've seen it, um, being
pushed over to like these trade groups, going to from the us, going
to the uk, going to Europe, you know, stop building wind, stop
building wind. You need LNG. So you can hear this undertone of
hydrocarbon industry, LNG, oil and gas drill, baby drill, getting
pushed. Is that. Is that lobby so strong that they've changed this?
I don't know if that's the case. I know that's part
of [00:08:00] it, but it does feel like it's this ego
thing, right? Because you have this engagement of every, every,
like you said, all of these different departments within the
federal government, they're being told, do this, do this, do this.
And again, I I want to say this to the, the general public. If you
don't know these things, like, so transportation Secretary Sean
Duffy, he's the head of basically the federal DOT. The federal DOT
is in charge of ports, so whenever you would go onto a port
facility, you need what's called a TWIC card transportation Worker
identification card, and that's a background check on you to make
sure that you're okay with the national interests to enter these
facilities. Those ports are exactly where we will be operating
offshore wind out of. They're the same places where we bring in
goods and services from other countries and do trade deals and all
these different things. It's the working part of our um, economy.
For the maritime side of it, right? So because the federal
government has control of these, they can do what they want at
these port facilities, regardless of [00:09:00] state
wants. So that's where you see. You have already heard in the news
President Trump and Gavin Newsom, man, not the best of friends,
right? So it's California and and federal thing not going so well.
So what is, what,